My Week as a Marketing Assistant

Applied for a degree in communications or the arts? You can be sure to complete at least one placement during your studies in order to secure a great job upon graduation.

I recently spent a week as a Marketing Assistant with Hull-based creative agency StrawberryToo and this is what I got up to…

Monday

The first day of a marketing placement is all about getting to know the team, the surroundings and the clients. StrawberryToo is staffed by a small team of graduates and apprentices, so fitting in was easy and I made a note of everyone’s name which came in handy when I needed help throughout the day.

Straight away, I was working for a real client which was super exciting as placement students don’t always get access to live projects. The client was a local food festival and I would be creating new and exciting social media content for them. I always recommend asking lots of questions at this stage, as you’re more likely to produce quality work if you are clued-up on what is expected. I set to work straight away, doing plenty of research and racking my brain to think of some great ideas that would show off my skills.

Tuesday

After a day of content creation, it was time to make my ideas a reality. With a go-ahead from the boss, I began to write my ideas up into social media posts. This may sound easy, but there’s a lot of thought that goes into every post, from the date and time you post to the platform you use and the hashtags you include. That’s not to mention the tone of voice, making sure it fits perfectly with the client’s target audience. It was hard work, but fun!

On Tuesday afternoon, I was introduced to a second client, a business providing bars, event furniture and waiting staff for hire. My job was to look through their website and list improvements that could be made to its design to appeal to new customers, which would be passed on to the design team who were building a brand new site. This helped me with my own portfolio website, as its easy to forget how every piece of text, image or link can give off a certain impression to potential employers.    

Wednesday

With plenty of experience in content creation and creating marketing strategies, the one thing I wanted to brush up on is social media monitoring and advertising. StrawberryToo were happy to help, and I was shown the basics, using Tweetdeck to track trends and engagement on multiple Twitter accounts and using Facebook to create boosted posts which involves carefully selecting the right audience to target in order to make the best use of the client’s budget. 

You should try to pick up as many new skills as possible whilst on work experience, as it’s a rare opportunity to pick the brains of the people doing the job you’d love to have some day!

Thursday

Thursday was a scary but amazing day in the office. Most of my week had been spent alongside StrawberryToo’s Marketing Graduate, but she was out of the office for the rest of the week so I had the pleasure of running a couple of social media accounts by myself. With a list of Facebook and Twitter posts to schedule, notifications to reply to and new content to build into the schedule, I was rushed off my feet!

There’s really nothing worse than spending a week of work experience without anything to do, so I made the most of this chance to be proactive and enjoyed every second. Remember – you’re there to learn and to show your talent, so ask for jobs if you run out and you’ll reap the benefits.

Friday

Also known as #FRIYAY, Friday marked the end of my placement and it was a day full of fun.

I had the wonderful job of announcing and engaging with a competition winner on Facebook, which brought a smile to my face! StrawberryToo also let me loose on their own social media accounts, which was strange as I’m used to being on the other side of their posts.

Fat Friday is an office tradition, so I joined the team for take-out Mexican food and doughnuts at lunch which was the perfect chance to catch up with everyone about how the week had gone and what life was like in the office.

Friday afternoon saw me putting on my blogging hat for StrawberryToo’s ‘Work Experience’ series of blog posts, which give an overview of each student’s time at the agency. I even took part in a little photo shoot! You can see what I had to say here.

With that, my week at StrawberryToo was over and it was time to head back to my student life once more, armed with tonnes of new skills, some great contacts in the industry and a renewed passion for communications!